Funding for transportation generously provided by Orange County Historical Commission and Orange County Old Courthouse Museum Society.

Dear Orange County Teachers and School Administrators,

On behalf of the VIETNAMESE FOCUS: GENERATIONS OF STORIES exhibition team, I would like to cordially invite you and your classes to visit our interactive history and art exhibition on display at the Old Orange County Courthouse in Santa Ana. Our exhibit is free and open to the public, and we can provide your classes with the following special benefits: free bus transportation, activity guides, and curator-led tours. Please reserve your visit as soon as possible, as this exhibition ends February 29, 2016.

Presented by OC Parks and the Vietnamese American Oral History Project (VAOHP) at UC Irvine, this exhibition, co-curated by Dr. Linda Trinh Vo and Tram Le with original artwork by Trinh Mai, showcases the diverse experiences and histories of Orange County’s Vietnamese American community. The exhibition provides snapshots of their lives before the war, experiences during the war, paths of escape and resettlement, and current lives in Orange County. It will be on display from July 2015 to February 2016, and is open to the public Monday through Friday from 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM, and select Saturdays.

We believe this exhibition will offer your students thought provoking intersections with your curriculum in Language Arts, U.S. and World History, and Fine Arts. This multi-media interactive exhibition and educational activities have been designed to provide students with the opportunity to expand their literacy skills through reading comprehension, creative writing exercises, and critical thinking. As an exhibition of history and visual art, the informative panels, artifacts, photographs, and works of art presented in this exhibition will introduce students to the personal stories and contextual information to broaden their cultural knowledge of the experiences faced by Vietnamese Americans in Orange County. This exhibition combines both primary and secondary sources, giving your students the opportunity to explore how individuals have lived through history.